


Until They Both Fell Asleep

by Five



Category: Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 18:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11296404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Five/pseuds/Five
Summary: After returning from Austerlitz and the birth of his son, Andrei Bolkonsky finds himself lost in sleepless, restless nights, in an emptier house than he's known, yet not quite alone





	Until They Both Fell Asleep

Andrei hadn't been asleep, anyway. He had been thinking. And for the past five minutes, he had been sitting in a dark room. With strips of pale moonlight disfiguring his paler still face, he sat not alone, but alone enough, his son in his arms coughing still. It was hours since the wet-nurse went to bed in the room off of the nursery.

 

His Nikolushka.

Quiet now.

 

With a tender and anxious breath, he stood on shaking legs and gently placed the baby in his crib. “Stay asleep,” he thought, pleaded. After kissing the baby on the forehead, he walked to the door and took one last look out into the dark room before walking out. In the hall, he heard a woman's voice.

“ _Marie...qu'est-ce que vous faites içi, à cette heure?_ ” Kneeling before the wall, his sister looked up with luminous eyes at a portrait of Lise, which had been hung recently outside the nursery. She was evidently embarrassed, having been caught in some sort of prayer like conversation with the portrait and quickly became silent.

“I'm sorry, Andryusha. I'll go to bed.” Marya said, softly.

“Alright.” His jaw grew tight.

For another second he stood there watching and for another second it was silent. Marya shuffled the skirt of her nightdress. Andrei turned on his heel. Then came another cry.

“I'll wake the wet nurse. You should sleep, Andryusha. You haven’t slept in days.” Marya pressed his sleeve between her fingers and smiled, rushing off through the nursery.

 

Confidently alone, Prince Andrei sat down beneath the portrait of the Little Princess. His face was cold and stern, yet, with his knees pressed to his chest and his wrists, crossed and resting on his knees, he looked almost childlike. He exhaled.

“Hello, Lise…” He turned and looked up at the portrait, with her smiling eyes and her little upper lip. He smiled a little. “Now I'm talking nonsense. Marya does it all the time. And does it help her? I don't know,” thought Prince Andrei. He was certain it wouldn't help him. And yet he was curious.

“I wasn't what I should have been. I know that now. I knew that. I should have been here. I was here, Lise. I was just here again.” He turned back away from the portrait. “This is idiotic.” He said, whispering. “But I did this to you. I’m here now and what difference does it make? I’m here now and Nikolushka is here and I’ll be here. But what difference does it make?”

 

At some point, the door had opened, and Marya and the nurse stood in the hall, looking out at Prince Andrei. He immediately pulled himself up and stood like a soldier at attention.

“ _André,_ ” Marya said softly.

“Go to bed Masha.”

“ _André, vous pouvez parler avec moi, si vous…_ ”

“Go to _bed_ , Masha.” He said, his voice strained. He pronounced bed lower and softer, the sound almost falling out. He twitched, slightly as he stared at her, coldly still, and she thought noticed tears in his eyes. Before she could tell, he turned away and bent to pick up a candle. She nodded faintly.

“Will you walk me back to my room? It's too dark.” Princess Marya, with her nearsighted eyes, watched Prince Andrei stop as he walked down the hall and to her surprise, turn back. He took steps back towards her and for the little things that blessed her still, she thanked God.

He grabbed her hand, silent as a secret, and guided her down the hall. He didn’t say a word, but not only that, he didn’t even give her so much as a glance as he walked, a cold grimace set still on him as he lead her to her room.

 

As Andrei opened the door it occurred to him that it may have been years since he last entered Marya’s room. And yet, it seemed to him, nothing had changed. Large, bright icons hung on one wall, the rest of which were neat and bare, clean polished wood and heavy curtains. Her bed, despite the late hour of the night, was still crisply made.

Prince Andrei muttered something with a soft laugh- not at all cruel or mocking, as she had first expected- then, grabbing her hand, walked her to her bed. He looked at her, moving around the bed, but still close enough that she could see his shadowed eyes. Placing one knee on the bed, he pulled the sheets back for her, and patted the mattress. Marya climbed in and laid out flat.

“Good night Masha.”

“Andrei?”

“What, Masha?”

“I miss her.” Marya whispered, tracing them both, without trying, back to a memory; the two were reminded of being young, when the old Princess had died of something sudden, and perhaps horrifically painful. The two had been too young to know if it was as painful for her as it had been for them.

Marya remembered then, being six years old, and her brother guiding her back to her room as her mother had, one night, and sitting beside her as she cried. “ _I miss her_.” She didn't remember, and he didn't care to remember, but he had been crying too, and the two sat awake that night and wept together until they both fell asleep.

Prince Andrei remembered that morning better than he remembered that night. He remembered waking up early and slipping out. He remembered the old Prince telling him that Marya couldn't be coddled. And what else he had said, Andrei didn't remember- more than half his life had passed since- but something in his person remembered it, that Marie wasn't to be coddled and that he was far too old to carry on and cry like a child. But Marya had said it then, “I miss her,” and Andrei had said it too.

He covered her with the blanket and walked away, picking up the candle as he left.

“Yes,” he said quickly and flatly, “I should suppose you would. Good night, Masha.” And this time, he left the room in darkness.

 

 


End file.
